Anarchist Zine Archive

“ A day against oblivion. A day for all those
who are missing from the streets.

For everyone of us that learned to count our
steps within the prison yard and divide our
day between locking after locking and our
night in tallies.

At the same time, June 11,h is a day of war.
It’s a day of rebellion because law and order
may rule but they do not reign.

Christos Tsakalos

JUNE11.ORG

HAM DAY OF SOUDARITY WITH AIL LONG-TERM ANARCHIST PRISONERS

For more information oo June lltlr and solidarity with
long-term anarchist prisoners around the world, visit

JUNE11.ORG

lo short: It’s a call-out, so we’re calling oo yoo!

June 11th is what you make of it.

Follow yoor heart aod fill the world with beaotifol gestures.
There is no action that is too small or too grand.

JUNE 11, 2018

Prisoner Updates

Throughout the past year, our imprisoned comrades have faced the cold eyes and
violent hands of the state with integrity intact. In Chile, Tamara Sol attempted
to escape from prison, was seriously injured in the process, and has since been trans¬
ferred: first to a maximum security prison in Santiago, and then to the especially bru¬
tal Llancahue prison in Valdivia. The “Bombs Case 2” wrapped up, with Juan Flores
found guilty of multiple bombings in Santiago and sentenced to 23 years in prison.
In Germany, Lisa was sentenced to over 7 years in prison after being found guilty
of robbing a bank in Aachen. She was transferred to JVA Willich II in February. In
the United States, Walter Bond went on hunger strike for six days, demanding vegan
meals, an end to mail tampering, and transfer to New York where he intends to live
upon release. In retaliation, he was transferred to the Communications Management
Unit in Terre Haute, Indiana. In Greece, Pola Roupa and Nikos Maziotis went on
hunger strike for nearly 40 days demanding better conditions and more time for vis¬
its, as well as the abolition of the ultra-repressive C-type prison that Nikos has been
held in. Dinos Yagtzoglou was arrested and is facing charges related to a letter bomb
that injured a former Greek prime minister. His resistance behind bars sparked an
uprising at three Greek prisons, securing his demand of transfer to Korydallos pris¬
on.

In the United States, trans anarchist and eco/animal liberation prisoner
Marius Mason needs more mail! He enjoys getting articles about animal rights, envi¬
ronmental activism, resistance to the alt-right, Black Lives Matter, and other prison
struggles. Carswell Federal Medical Center, where Marius has been held for the past
several years, is a notoriously restrictive and cruel facility. Currently they are denying
him medical care for his transition as promised, as well as adequate vegan food op¬
tions.

June 11th is an idea, not just a day. June 11th is every day. And ideas are bullet¬
proof. Let’s breathe life into the rest of the year and renew the celebration of
anarchist prisoners’ lives by carrying on their struggles alongside them.

is an international day of solidarity with Marius Mason and
all long-term anarchist prisoners. A spark in the eternal night of state repression. A
day set aside for honoring those who have been stolen from us. On this day, we share
in songs, events, and actions to celebrate our captured comrades and loved ones. In
years past, June 11th celebrations have been international and wide-ranging — from
potlucks with friends to various inspiring attacks; fundraising benefits and prisoner
letter writing nights to all of the untold and unknown ways we keep the flame alive.

Building up to this day, each year several of us come together to discuss
and reflect on lessons from years past and to renew this call for continuous solidarity.
This year we invite you to explore and ponder with us how maintaining support for
long-term prisoners depends directly on sustaining the movements and struggles
we all remain part of. How can we expect to continue through decades of support
as movements, groups, and people come and go, burn out, and get caught in the
exhausting ebbs and flows of struggle? Going deeper, what can we learn from long¬
term prisoners and their legacies of solidarity? How can we sustain and improve the
health of our movements, and in turn strengthen that support?

Over the last several years, critiques of incarceration have flourished, often
resulting in a myriad of prisoner support efforts and projects. Embodying stability,
commitment, and longevity are prisoners from Black liberation, the New Left, in¬
digenous movements, and those who have unceasingly supported them for decades.
In addition to these efforts, there has been an upsurge in organizing against mass
incarceration itself. Though smaller groups had been pioneering these sentiments for
many years prior, it is encouraging to see more people taking up this work. There has
also been an extension of efforts to support prison rebels who have been engaging
in everything from work strikes to burning and trashing entire units on the inside.
At the same time, more and more projects are critiquing the state itself — identifying
that it is upheld by the pillars of prisons and police. Finally, there are more efforts
aimed at addressing the needs of queer and trans prisoners, criminalized survivors
of domestic and sexual abuse, and people living with mental health challenges, just
to name a few.

In the spirit of June 11th, which invites everyone to participate according
to their own desires, personal affinities, and tactical preferences, it encourages us to
see such widespread activity. One thing in particular that we have been heartened to
see is just how widespread newsletters, blogs, books, and zines written by prisoners
have become. After years of discussion about amplifying prisoners’ voices, we are
seeing the results and appreciate the countless hours put in by both prisoners and

JUNE 11, 2018

supporters to launch and sustain these publications. Complementing these efforts
are those which have furthered international solidarity by translating and transmit¬
ting the words of our comrades, and those who have undertaken beautiful gestures
and messages of solidarity with bold action and attack.

Amongst these many prisoner support projects we see a variety of orien¬
tations, tactics, strategies, and practices. Along with the expansion of initiatives has
come endless emergencies and urgent calls to action to have prisoners’ backs, on top
of all the other constant crises in this nightmare world. With so much to do, we are
forced to make choices. Traditional activism, which demands so much of our energy
be directed into immediate and often symbolic responses at the expense of long¬
term intentions and strategies, simply will not do. We need to act with an eye towards
sustaining our movements and projects, so that we remain capable of supporting
comrades spending decades in prison. This requires a holistic approach to struggle
and living in solidarity. One-time gestures are important, and sometimes the best we
can do. But what does it mean to be in it for the long haul?

While June 11th is only one day, it is a manifestation of the daily strength
and fortitude of imprisoned comrades and the tireless, behind-the-scenes work
of those who support them. This often looks like visiting; writing; raising money;
spreading information; and sharing their artwork, poems, and writings. We are in¬
spired by Jeremy Hammond and Marius Mason’s support crews working consistently
to keep them connected to the rest of the world. We hearken back to Sacramento
Prisoner Support fighting for years to get Eric McDavid free. We are humbled by so
many who have helped long-term prisoners like Zolo Azania, Russell Maroon Shoa-
tz, David Gilbert, Sean Swain, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Jalil Muntaqim, Leonard Peltier
and so many others publish books written in their cells.

Visions & Possibilities

Faced with both the long-term prospect of aiding comrades through decades in
prison and the short-term work that this solidarity entails, we risk getting lost
in alternating currents of despair and mania that leave no space for reflection. It’s
difficult to know where to move when faced with the overwhelming task of amelio¬
rating the deprivation and misery our comrades face, while also remaining critical of
reformism. We want our comrades free now and all prisons demolished immediately,
but we have no idea how to do this. Despite our combined decades of acting in sol¬
idarity with anarchist prisoners, we have no blueprint, only visions.

By throwing away divisive dichotomies and their tactical fetishes (mass
struggle vs. direct action), we can come to a new metric by which to judge our work:

A DAY AGAINST OBLIVION

can this sustain me and my comrades through the coming years? It seems unlikely
that a vibrant movement of solidarity with prisoners can come to bloom if our con¬
cerns are solely ideological, tactical, or strategic. The joy and difficulty of human re¬
lationships, the sadness engendered by concrete and razor wire, the struggle against
oppressive ideas and behavior and the concurrent need for transformative forms of
addressing conflict, the excitement and fear that come with a comrade’s release, and
the frustration and exhaustion of doing this work should all become part of how we
envision solidarity.

It seems to us that by actively engaging in these considerations, we can be¬
gin to think beyond the immediate crises: restricted literature, missing letters, stints in
solitary, harassment from guards, scrambling for commissary funds, restricted phone
calls and visits. By grounding ourselves in relationships with individuals in prison
- seeing them not as celebrities, leaders, or abstract “oppressed people”- we open
space to dream of what a life shared in common with our imprisoned comrades
could mean. With this, we exit the realm of the purely political and enter the realm
of the human. One cannot survive on duty and ideology, but human relationships
can nourish and sustain us. And we must continuously fight to maintain clear paths
to reach our comrades in this way, as the state continues to dehumanize and isolate
them, increasingly restricting visits to those behind glass or worse, those on a screen,
whether we be a few yards or hundreds of miles away. In-person and contact visits,
priceless for building real human connection, are often high on the list of demands
from prisoners and those supporting them on the outside. Recently we’ve been in¬
spired by Fight Toxic Prisons’ campaign to keep contact visits in the Florida Depart¬
ment of Corrections.

We must strive for lives intertwined with our friends and comrades in pris¬
on. And indeed, in many ways, they are. The repression of prisoner support groups
by Operation Scripta Manent (the Italian state’s attempt to repress anarchist activities
by accusing individuals of carrying out incendiary and explosive attacks) remind us
that there is often a thin line separating those who are imprisoned and those who are
outside supporting them in whatever way they can.

What can these considerations on building sustainable movements, com¬
munities, and projects suggest to us when thinking about accompanying our com¬
rades through both pre-trial repression and post-release transitions? Passing on his¬
torical and intergenerational knowledge from those who have already survived the
worst the state could throw at them would certainly be helpful and inspiring to those
currently fighting to remain free. And what would be better for a comrade coming
out of prison than a strong community and friends who have already been working
and envisioning lives together?